Incurable
by honalooloo
Summary: ONE-SHOT. Set directly after Series 3, Episode 4 of CBBC's Young Dracula. With the Draculas still under the illusion that Erin is a half-fang, Vlad considers the practicalities of putting his heart on the line for a girl whose allegiance, through no fault of her own, lies elsewhere...


_DISCLAIMER: I own none of the Young Dracula characters or locations etc. The only thing I own is the plot of the story._

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: This came to me in the dead of night yesterday. I've always wondered how Erin thought she would get round the issue of loyalty when she was telling everyone that she was a half-fang in Series 3, so here is Vlad's take on the whole affair. Dedicated to HyaHya, Redrachxo and Vlarinfan4eva, for always writing such lovely reviews._

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"I want vampires and breathers to live together in peace," Vlad said quietly, staring almost unseeingly at his father's throne on the opposite side of the room. "I want the bloodshed to end. Forever." He blinked, suddenly realising that he had spoken aloud. He glanced at Erin, who was looking at him strangely- almost as if through new eyes. She averted her gaze quickly, the silence between the pair becoming increasingly tense. Vlad didn't know whether to stay or to go, whether to speak or remain silent. His sensitive hearing picked up the creak of floorboards outside, but he ignored it; it was probably just Wolfie messing around.

"You'll be able to do it, Vlad," Erin said hesitantly, pushing herself to her feet. She hovered by the arm of the sofa, fiddling with a loose thread on one of the cushions. "I have faith in you."

"Thanks," Vlad replied awkwardly. The silence elongated, neither of them quite sure whether the conversation was over or not. Erin looked at her watch.

"I've got some Biology in for tomorrow that I haven't finished," she told him, the relief in her voice more detectable she would have liked it to be.

Vlad nodded. "See you later, then," he called after her retreating back. She turned round, flashing him a brief smile, and shut the dining room door with a dull rattle of the polished wood. Vlad listened to her soft footsteps receding along the corridor, growing fainter and fainter, before he flopped back on the sofa and closed his eyes with a groan.

It was a good job that Erin hadn't yet mastered telepathy. He'd have died of shame if she'd delved into his mind and seen the dream he'd had about her earlier. Vlad groaned again- that dream would probably set the feminist movement back about fifty years. He couldn't help it, though. She was just so… he cast around for a word worthy of describing the blonde half-fang… _unique_. She was unlike any other girl Vlad had ever met. She certainly wasn't anything like Ingrid.

She was pretty, but not in a conventional way. She didn't have long, flowing hair, a Marilyn Monroe type of figure, or that way of fluttering her eyelashes that made most boys' knees turn to jelly. She was quietly confident, not openly so; she was feisty up to a point, certainly not willing to let the clan push her around. She didn't treat Vlad like he was God's gift. It was almost as if she were a normal seventeen year old breather. Which, he supposed, she had been until a few weeks ago.

He wondered who had done it. A male, he was certain- some instinct told him that Erin wouldn't have succumbed to a female's fangs. An accident, perhaps? A heat of the moment, knee-jerk reaction, the result of some uncontrollable vampire's sudden surge of bloodlust? Or had Erin known of the existence of vampires before she had been bitten? Had she perhaps angered them in some way, and the bite had been their revenge? Vlad longed to know, but he wasn't insensitive enough to ask. He hoped, in time, that she would tell him, that she would confide in him just as he had done.

He longed to see the scar. It fascinated him as much as it repulsed him. He imagined it small, delicate, yet harsh and unnecessarily deep. During their conversation, his fingers had itched to pull the scarf away from her slender neck, to run his cool fingers over her fading pulse point. A shiver ran down his spine.

He was getting ahead of himself. He wasn't even sure that he liked Erin, in that way, anyway. Granted, his stomach performed back-flips whenever he saw her, back-flips that were becoming increasingly spectacular as time went on, but didn't that happen to all boys when they were around pretty girls? But then that didn't explain why her steely, unwavering determination to fight her transformation, combined with her intense vulnerability, hit him like a brick every time his eyes met her blue ones.

Vlad stopped himself again. He was forgetting one crucial problem: her sire. Whoever he was, wherever he was, Erin wouldn't be able to struggle against the bond of loyalty that held her to him forever. Her blood was fighting the transformation, that much was obvious: it would explain the occasional reddening of her cheeks and the way she sighed when she was given too much Maths homework. But she couldn't fight the bite for much longer. Her body would succumb sooner or later, and, when it did, Vlad knew that her free will would go with it. She would be bound, inexplicably, to the vampire who had taken her life and given her immortality.

And it would be unwise to start a relationship with someone whose (now unbeating) heart belonged to another. Erin wouldn't be staying at Garside for much longer now; she wouldn't be able to ignore the devotion she felt to her sire, no matter how much she hated them. She would lose her free will, her rationality… all would be replaced by an insatiable desire to please her master.

A wild thought suddenly occurred to Vlad- what if _he_ bit her? Couldn't he sink his own fangs into the same spot on her neck, re-open the half-healed wound, and somehow transfer Erin's loyalty to him? He remembered the relationship between Ingrid and Will. Whatever anyone had said, Vlad knew that that had been love. The look of pure anguish on his sister's face as she had watched the half-fang turn to dust was all Vlad had needed to be convinced of the depth of her feelings.

He sighed. He was being ridiculous. Loyalty couldn't be transferred. It was like that stupid legend that Erin had been talking about: wiping out the bloodline of the vampire that infected you wouldn't lift the curse. It was a myth, an old wives' tale. This was the 21st century, for goodness sake; no-one took any notice of the stories of old anymore. No-one except Erin, obviously.

Vlad's resolve suddenly hardened. He would do everything in his power to help Erin to accept her new life, to accept what she had become. It wouldn't be easy- there was enough animosity towards her from his father and Bertrand as it was- but Vlad was determined to do it. And then maybe, just maybe, they would have chance.

Vlad snorted, rising slowly to his feet and stretching. He was making them sound like Romeo and Juliet.

_FIN_

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Any feedback is much appreciated and greatly valued. If you enjoyed this then please check out my other fics. Thank you!_


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